A possible cyberattack on The Philadelphia Inquirer disrupted the newspaper’s print operation over the weekend and prompted it to close its newsroom through at least Tuesday, when its staff will be covering an expensive and fiercely contested mayoral primary.
Sunday’s newspaper was only available digitally as an e-edition. However, Sunday’s early edition paper was printed and delivered since it’s produced Friday. Monday newspapers were also printed and delivered as usual, but Inquirer publisher Lisa Hughes said the team is omitting classified ads and death notices until Wednesday “out of an abundance of caution.”
The news operation’s website was still operational Sunday, although updates were slower than normal, the Inquirer reported. The attack was first detected when employees on Saturday morning found the newspaper’s content management system was not working.
The incident is the greatest publication disruption to the state’s largest news organization since a blizzard shut operations down for two days in January 1996, the company said.
